


Tireless

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Eroica Yori Ai o Komete | From Eroica with Love
Genre: Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 22:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18765649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: When Klaus is hurt, Dorian is capable of being the kind of comforting a man like the Iron Major needs. And when Klaus is grateful, Dorian can read between the lines. After all, the two of them do have something in common-- they'll both always get their man in the end.





	Tireless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerine/gifts).



> An extra treat fic because GOSH I do love Klaus and Dorian, and their strange courtship.

    “You are not going to die.” Dorian says.

 

    The ridiculous fop sounds very firm on the matter, Klaus has to give him that. He’s soaked himself, must be _freezing_ , skinny as he is, but he’s…

 

    _Tireless_.

 

    After Klaus was shot, Dorian had gotten the drop on his attacker, Klaus had taken out the second gunman even after he’d been hit… Dorian had been the one to half-carry him to safety, had given up his fancy silk scarf to be held firm over the bleeding wound. Walked him through the storm to the little A-frame cabin hidden deep in the woods.

 

    His men must have scouted it earlier, because he took them there unerringly. He doesn’t fit the place at all, too bright, some golden tropical bird that ought to be flitting between beautiful flowers, and instead is in this place, barely suitable for weekend hunters to make a temporary home in. It keeps the weather out, mostly. There’s a bed, where Klaus has been deposited. There’s a woodstove in the center of the room, where Dorian sets to work building a fire-- and thankfully there’s a basket of wood and tinder at hand.

 

    “Out of those wet things before you freeze. Now I assure you, Major, I take no pleasure in this, under the circumstances, but…”

 

    “I’d _rather_ die.” Klaus protests, his voice weak.

 

    “You are _not_ going to die.” Dorian repeats, drawing something out of his own clothing. Some small case. He sets it aside, and then turns to the bag he’d had-- not much of one. He sets up a clothesline before stripping out of his own clothes, shivering in his underthings and slippers, digging out what little he’d had with him. He pulls on a sweater, though the vee of the neck is so deep it doesn’t do much for him, and inspects a thin pair of lounge pants, silk with a drawstring waist, before sadly setting them aside, along with a pair of socks.

 

    He gets Klaus undressed, businesslike and firm in the face of all opposition, and once Klaus’ clothes are also hanging to dry, he takes a needle from his case, passes it into the flames dancing in the woodstove before threading it.

 

    “Would you like to bite down on something?” He offers.

 

    “Unnecessary.”

 

    “Very well.” Dorian nods, and he sets to work.

 

    The pain is enormous, but then, so was the pain of having been shot. The bullet had only grazed him deeply, had only torn through skin and muscle. Dorian’s no doctor, but he’s certainly capable of this. He gets him stitched up, cleaned up as best he can, and then he helps him into the silk lounge pants-- what might have been looser on Dorian’s frame is less so on Klaus, but they aren’t so different that the pants don’t fit. He helps him into a shirt as well, one of those blousy, voluminous things, loose everywhere but tight across Klaus’ shoulders. Better than remaining naked. He even gives up his spare pair of socks.

 

    “See? You’re not going to die.”

 

    “We may still freeze out here, before either of our sides finds us.”

 

    “Our sides are one and the same today. I’m in the mountains as Dorian, not as Eroica. And I am missing from a fabulous weekend party at a ski lodge. It won’t only be my men looking for me, they shall organize something. Besides, you’ve a very capable team searching for you.”

 

    He wrings his hair out first, and then slides into the bed, and pulls the covers over them. Arranges himself so that they can share heat as best any two people can, with a gunshot wound to be careful of.

 

    “If I do, though… I want you to know… you’ve impressed me today. And… I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”

 

    “Yes, giving up that scarf was a great sacrifice.”

 

    Klaus snorts. After only a moment or two of carefully watching the man, he closes his eyes. Not something he ever saw himself doing when in a bed with Dorian, the pervert, and yet… maybe not so perverse. At least, not this night. No, this night, Dorian is… cool, and competent, and respectful. And he is warm, so warm that Klaus finds himself moving closer, finding a way to get more of that warmth between them. Strange as it seems, here with Dorian, after how he’d behaved, Klaus feels _safe_. If anyone had told him he would feel this way someday, he’d have laughed, or he’d have packed them off to Alaska. Or punched them. He thinks he may have done all three, actually. And yet…

 

    So often, Dorian retreats into this larger-than-life version of himself. But this… this Dorian is calm and competent. He is still delicate, there is still a certain quality about him, but he isn’t… All the things about him that so often infuriate are gone, and he has shown himself capable, he has shown himself _strong_. He has made no comments about sex, about Klaus’ body, about inappropriate things, he has only treated him and kept him warm. The closest he has come is a single smile, warm and too sad, as if he were on the verge of commenting on their position, and yet he never opens his mouth to voice it. And it isn’t anything nasty lurking in his eyes. It is something…

 

    It is something.

 

    It’s not long after dawn that they’re discovered-- the little accountant wails over finding them in bed together, and Klaus feels in no mood to deal with him at all. He feels in no mood for anything, except a cup of coffee far far away from the cabin and from Dorian’s men. Although… for once, he’s not in any particular hurry to be away from Dorian himself.

 

\---/-/---

 

    Dorian looks out over the Mediterranean, enjoying the breeze from his balcony. After the disastrous ski holiday, he’d longed to be somewhere warm. Blood and freezing temperatures aside, it had been as nice as any encounter with the Major has ever been… The temperature had been frosty, and for once, his beloved had not been. Dorian had had to discard his more heavily bled upon articles of clothing from that weekend, but he’d kept the silk lounge pants. He’s wearing them now.

 

    There are two drops of blood, which laundering had not removed, dark rust against rose red.

 

    Bonham unobtrusively places the mail on the little table out on the balcony, and Dorian turns, seeing a package in amongst the expected.

 

    No return address. No note between the plain brown paper and slim white box. When he lifts the lid, though, neither is necessary-- no, he sees the silk scarf and he needs know nothing more.

 

    There is a note, however-- tucked in beneath the scarf. He traces his fingers over the front. Clean and crisp and white, with a beautifully precise hand. His first name-- not ‘Eroica’, not even ‘Gloria’, but ‘Dorian’.

 

        _Dorian-_

_I believe when last we met, I was responsible for ruining your scarf. As you were so very hospitable with me, I felt it only proper I replace it. This is the same pattern as the one you lost._

_Perhaps when next we meet, you will be wearing it. But don’t expect me to be so nice to you a second time if when we see each other, you tell me it has gone out of fashion. And don’t expect me to begin thanking you for every little thing, if I thank you for this. This was not a little thing, and your comportment was admirable. You ought to behave so to me more often, and we might not always be so adversarial._

_Thank you._

_-Klaus_

 

    Dorian smiles. The scarf doesn’t go with his loungewear, but he wears it anyway. He isn’t going out to be seen today, after all. And who knows when the Major might see fit to be so _darling_ to him again?


End file.
